Sorry to rain on the parade so early, but...

[PZ]

That's really a shame to hear, especially the part about the boss mission.  I dislike those almost as much as the chase sequences.

There was a mission where you need to do a timed sequence through a burning building that reminded me of Just Cause 2 - not terribly annoying, but at the same time, was very linear considering the open world nature of the game.

I just finished the Medusa mission a short while ago, which I really liked because you need to go in via stealth.  My last mission is the one where you torch the drug fields which I also really liked.  Shooting barrels, and using the flamethrower on fields and foe alike was great.  The pirates really burn nicely.  The part where you need to get to the fishing village was also great; I used the M700 silent sniper with high powered optics to pick off all the bad guys.

I was so hoping that the rest of the main story missions were like these.

I'll likely play through again, but more likely to do the side stuff.  I might just do a blaze through main mission only play so I have an easy way to get back in to do free roam.

[DKM2]

I'm with ya fragger.
I'm still giving it a chance though, I've a number of complaints,
but as with anything new, sometimes you just need time to get used to it.

I think I got a system for doing saves, but still a little funky.
Damn animal preds are a little over done, can't go anywhere without getting attacked by some cat.
Are they all eating catnip?  Full clips of AK47 don't even slow them down.
wait, wife is around......

ok, Village girls are nice and perky though...

[PZ]

 

The AK is unfortunately not strong enough to do the larger animals much damage.  Personally, I like to run the animals over in a vehicle  >:D

When moving on foot, I carefully listen for the warning growls indicating their presence and then run like heck.  :-()

Another good place to get the larger cats is in the outposts where they are caged, and easy to kill.

[fragger]

I was so hoping that the rest of the main story missions were like these.

Me too mate, me too. That drug crop mission was a pretty good one, and the Medusa one as well. I feel as though the devs have pandered to the Modern Warfare crowd and to those who claimed that FC2 was boring for pretty much the same reasons that we guys all loved it - patience, thought, study and exploration was required to get the most out of the game instead of just mindless button-mashing :-()

Hopefully there might still be a main mission or two further on like the crop one. Everything else outside the story part of the game is just terrific :-X

I think I got a system for doing saves, but still a little funky.

Actually, I'm having a bit of a problem with that as well - actually an exasperating problem. When the checkpointing isn't in effect, i.e. between main missions, and I reload after doing a save, it starts me back at whatever radio tower I did last, regardless of whether I do a quick save/load or one through the menu. It does however remember what objects I've found, crates opened, etc, but any bad guys I've taken down will be back up again, such as at an outpost, by the time I get back there. Also, the picture accompanying the saved game in the menu doesn't show where I was when I saved like it did in FC2 and the timestamps never gel. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm playing offline and so not connecting to the cloud or something, I don't know.

[Art Blade]

the savegame description confused me, too, until I realised that the last line contains the actual (file) time stamp. The rest is something else.

[Jim di Griz]

I will have my first full day at this game today. I have done the skins and plants mission (twice now as I did not save correctly after the first session on Thursday evening  ::)) and found I was up against about twelve Komodos whilst fending off pirates from two sides - the first time through was a stroll in the park with no enemies whatsovever - so I'm assuming subsequent playthroughs will be quite different. I then did the first outpost and wild dogs side-mission and wandered around gathering stuff to craft better gear. So I am about to go to the Doc's house.

That was just preamble though to my point. My lady has played a bit further and I noticed that one of the timed med-pack side missions was very finicky regarding the checkpoints. I suppose that is a taste of what we can expect with later, timed missions  :(

As for the psychadelic and brainwashing elements - I was quite looking forward to those after the first few trailers came out. Other games such as Ratchett & Clank and Uncharted 3 have used altered perception to some good advantage during their gameplay and I know that I focus harder on everything when the world is doing unexpected s#!t  :

I shall be doubly wary though when the time comes, as I said earlier I don't really liked timed stuff, or boss battles. Thanks for the warning.

[fragger]

I shall be doubly wary though when the time comes, as I said earlier I don't really liked timed stuff, or boss battles. Thanks for the warning.

In view of that, all I can say is be prepared to do a fair bit of disliking... I did (and am).

[PZ]

I see what you were talking about fragger; I just finished a mission in which I was to accompany some chap named Rondo to his house in the village.  Long story short, it felt almost like Call of Duty in it's linearity  I can't say that I appreciate this kind of game play in Far Cry 3.

Another mission was through a burning house, which reminded me of Uncharted 3 in which there was a similar mission, but it was done much better.

In all, I really love exploring the world, liberating outposts, crafting, etc.  However only the first few main missions were fun.

... I noticed that one of the timed med-pack side missions was very finicky regarding the checkpoints. I suppose that is a taste of what we can expect with later, timed missions  :(

These remind me of the races in Just Cause 2.  Like in JC2, some of them have been fun while others are too "timed"

[Art Blade]

agree with you regarding the very first med pack races. After the third one I either got a lot better at doing them or they weren't as hard any more: I was actually looking forward to doing more.  :)

[PZ]

Indeed; I did one in a big truck and that was fun  :-X

[Jim di Griz]

I liked the mixed checkpoint jet-ski and quad-bike one  :)

[durian]

I've just arrive in the south island and complete a few story missions. I pretty much agree with all the points fragger made.

I have to say I don't enjoy these story missions. More forced stealth, more protection, more corridor shootouts and completely linear. I was shocked when I faced the boss fragger mentioned. I certainly won't play through this game again, instead I'll load the finished game save slot to wander around both the north and south maps.

If you won't play through it again, make sure there are many outposts left to take over after you beat the game.

I'm planning to liberate about 20 outposts, and then do the rest after completed the game. But I won't kill everyone at each outpost as the enemies won't respawn.

[PZ]

... But I won't kill everyone at each outpost as the enemies won't respawn.

Interesting thought; that could lead to lots of replay value.   :-X

[durian]

  My last mission is the one where you torch the drug fields which I also really liked.  Shooting barrels, and using the flamethrower on fields and foe alike was great.  The pirates really burn nicely.  The part where you need to get to the fishing village was also great; I used the M700 silent sniper with high powered optics to pick off all the bad guys.

If you like stealth approach, you can silent takedown all of the baddies before using flamethrower to burn the farm.

[PZ]

I might try that the next time through.  The first time I enjoyed watching them run beside exploding barrels while I popped off a single bullet taking out a group of them.

[fragger]

Well, I think I'm going to curtail my FC3 experience.

I just spent a fun hour hiding and throwing rocks. There's a mission where you have to infiltrate a dock set deep in a cave. You have no weapons, not even your knife, no takedowns are allowed (you can't anyway without your knife), and if a merc sees you, you fail the mish. So you have to hide, throw rocks to distract the guards, sneak past, rinse and repeat. Sounds simple enough - and dull enough - and it is - and it is - until you get to this one area with half a dozen guys in it. It's quite a small area with a ramp in full view of them all and you need to get all six mercs to face away from it so that you can get down it and slip past them. The trouble is, they don't always react the way you expect, sometimes one or two get stuck on something in such a way that there's no way past, and there's very often at least one guy on the ramp itself. Occasionally they get into a promising position, but invariably one of them turns before you can make it and the jig's up. I just wasted an hour of my life trying to get past and still ended up getting spotted and thus failing. I'm sure it is doable, eventually - you might get lucky and sneak through first go, or you could be stuck for well over an hour. It's a total lottery and it sucks.

Throwing rocks around ad infinitum isn't my idea of a fun game. More like an immensely boring game. The ironic thing is that at the start of this sequence (on Hoyt's island) a popup tells you that eight new weapons have been unlocked - then it takes ALL of them away from you for the very first mission.

So no more living in denial - on balance, I don't like FC3. I tried to, but I don't - the exasperation and boredom factor of the story missions is way too high and I have no inclination to play a second time. It was enormous fun for a day or two until the novelty wore off and I'd done all the side stuff, which was great fun,  but while I was playing chuck-the-rock it suddenly occurred to me that I was bored out of my brain and I quit. I was thinking of sticking the game out to the finish to see how it ends, but I don't think I care anymore, it can just gather dust on the shelf along with all the other disappointing games I've bought in recent years. I certainly can't stand the thought of going through all those painfully scripted story missions a second time, especially that rock caper. That was, as they say, the clincher.

Besides, it's dawned on me that a post-game free roam will actually be pretty flipping boring, unless you do as durian suggested and leave the outposts in enemy hands so that the pirates don't all disappear, but that will mean very few fast travel points and safehouses. Otherwise there will be nobody left to fight with except animals and all that will be left will be the racing and shooting challenges, poker games, and running all around the islands finding relics and lost letters. But if you start a new game and want to eventually unlock the entire map, you'll have to play through all those breathtakingly funless main missions all over again.

I've raced against too much time, been forced down too many predetermined paths, made to sit through too many tripped-out cut scenes, and thrown too many rocks. I'm out.

So close... so close to being something truly unique and remarkable, but because the devs ended up making Lara Croft Does Far Cry, Modern Warfare Style they'll get no cigar from me.

Geez, five days and I'm over it. FC2 kept me coming back for about three years. Ubi dropped the ball for me big time - it wasn't worth the wait after all :-(

I think I'll fire up a game of Civ V and have some actual fun...

[Jim di Griz]

...But I won't kill everyone at each outpost as the enemies won't respawn.

I found that going back through an area that you've liberated remains exciting as the beasties redouble their efforts, this time against the friendlies...so you have the option of saving their asses while they do daft stuff.

[durian]

 I wasted 1-2 hours in my life because I failed amny times in this forced stealth mission  that was so boring and frustrating.  I don't mind do a stealth mission sometimes but this stealth mission is poorly designed, extremely linear. You have only 1 route to go to objective, and you don't have any weapons or gears, you can't perform silent takedown. It's really ironic that in a game Ubisoft advertized as "play it your ways", they force players to play in 1 way that they want the players to play.

And to add insult to the injury, the game didn't save when I turned off the console to go to bed after successsfully sneaking past all the guys. I had to replay the mission from beginning when I presumed.

fargger, if you liberate about 20 outposts, that would be a pretty big amount of fast travels aspecially when you compare to FC2's.

[durian]

I found that going back through an area that you've liberated remains exciting as the beasties redouble their efforts, this time against the friendlies...so you have the option of saving their asses while they do daft stuff.

How about shooting the so called "friendlies" ?  :-D

[PZ]

That mission sounds horrendous!  ???

I really don't like poorly scripted linear missions, and that one sounds like it is one of the worst.

That's bad news that the further you get in the game, the more you dislike the main story.

Sounds like the only thing that would keep me excited is to find a way to circumvent awful missions like that by creating a mod or by using an invisibility cheat just to get past the foolishness.  If only we could open a game as if the main missions had already been played through so you still had a full world of outposts, etc.

[durian]

In retrospect, that mission is not hard once you've learned the patrol guys' patterns, where to go and where to hide but it's still a boring mission.

[fragger]

Damn... It got the better of me that I left the game like that as I don't like to just give up, so I had another go at it and this time I managed to get past those guys - after another fifteen minutes or so of trying.

Hoyt's island is a bit different in that you're up against his private army, not pirates. These guys are more heavily armed and better kitted out. However, you're now disguised as one of them and so can move freely amongst them. Just don't collide with them in a vehicle or take any down within sight of others or there'll be trouble. You can still liberate outposts though and the Rakyat guys will show up as in the northern map. Some of the newly unlocked weapons look cool, including one of my faves, the venerable .50 cal Desert Eagle.

I won't give anything away, but I'm pretty sure that Citri is going to be a nastier piece of w@&k than her brother was. There are clues... observe what goes on when you finally move to take out Vaas. I have a feeling that she'll be the boss to beat at the end.

Sounds like the only thing that would keep me excited is to find a way to circumvent awful missions like that by creating a mod or by using an invisibility cheat just to get past the foolishness.  If only we could open a game as if the main missions had already been played through so you still had a full world of outposts, etc.

Great minds, PZ... I also thought that if someone could create a mod that would make the whole game world available from the start and could bypass the story altogether, I would really enjoy this game a whole lot more. And I did look online to see if there was an invisibility cheat. There is, as part of a cheat package available from a site called Cheat Happens, but you have to sign up with them to get it, and I wasn't keen on doing that.

And to add insult to the injury, the game didn't save when I turned off the console to go to bed after successsfully sneaking past all the guys. I had to replay the mission from beginning when I presumed.

I've noticed that too, if you quit halfway through a mission and then reload it later, it won't start you from the last checkpoint you reached, but rather right back at the start of the entire mission. The game does have some serious save issues.

[PZ]

Good for you, fragger  :-X I suspected that you would not let the game get the best of you.

I just finished yet another linear mission in which I was attacking a ship looking for a laptop.  A big fat heavily armored guy came storming out of the room and because I was low on ammo with no grenades, I had to try to sneak past him.  Unfortunately he was guarding the door, so a couple of rocks later I was able to get by and go into the room.  Lo and behold it was all for naught because the laptop evidently does not activate until you kill him.  These guys remind me of the deep voiced clumsy but huge golden guards in AC2.

I too have experienced the restart the entire mission save issue.  Not always, but enough to make me nervous every time I need to shut down in the middle of a mission.

I'm disappointed that you have only a single save, and 3 game slots - which is exactly like the Assassin's Creed series.

[fragger]

Cheers PZ :)

Re-reading my second-to-last post, it occurs to me that maybe I was a little too harsh on the game. It has so much to offer beyond the linearity of the story and it's obvious that a lot of hard w@&k has gone into it. It was a tad unfair of me to diss it out of hand like that when there is a lot I really do enjoy about it. I guess I was mouthing off out of frustration at the time :-[ :-()

Even so, it doesn't change my opinion that the replay value is negatively impacted by the story missions. I probably will play at least once more, but only for the fun of taking down outposts, hunting animals to get my carrying capacities up, and exploring that colossal and beautifully executed game world. I'll just have to grit my teeth and bash through the story missions without letting them tick me off too much... They'll probably go quicker the next time around now that I know what to expect. Even though it will limit the number of fast travel points, I may even leave all of the outposts unliberated so that there will be lots of fun to be had after the story is over, if that is a doable thing.

Maybe that's the way to go - try to rip through the story missions as early and quickly as possible and save the game there, so that all the fun stuff can be enjoyed later on :-() It's still tricky with that measly three saved game slots idea. What in the blazes were they thinking with that? I'd like to know what the rationale was behind that decision. I mean, really.

Anyway, the game cost me $99.95, so I want to get at least some of my money's worth out of it :-()

[PZ]

Three words fragger, "single player maps" that gamers create and upload to share.  The way I read it you can add anything you like including AI, vehicles, animals, etc.  Check out this post I just started in a new topic